Category Archives: plateaus

Building a thriving and growing health, wellness and rehabilitation business is something I am always striving for.

As a Kinesiologist I know that we graduate from our Kinesiology or Human Kinetics programs with very few business skills; they all learned as we practice. During the last ten years I have had to learn through weekend workshops, business coaching , reading and watching videos or listening to podcasts as well learning from what succeeded and what didn’t.

This weekend I attended an all day workshop on how to build a thriving wellness practice at the Vancouver Yacht Club, organized by Lotus Counselling Services and Chasidy Karpiuk & Associates. This series of seminars started with accounting and bookkeeping, progressed through business planning and finished with building and branding. We also had the unexpected pleasure of having our headshot photo taken. I think it was well worth going to as an opportunity to network with a variety of health and wellness professionals including another Kinesiologist from Fort St. John. This was really a quick business bootcamp which gave wellness professionals a kick start and some of the tools to build their practice.

I remember being in the same place as some of the participants who were starting to transition from being employees to being the self-employed. This was when I was having great difficulty finding work in my industry so I decided to start my own business. This business struggled even after I participated in a Small Business BC Self-Employment program. I still didn’t entirely understand what it was going to take to succeed. Lifemoves® is my second business which I am very focused on making it a success. I folded my previous one I rebranded in 2007 the company brand no longer met my current personal brand’s needs.

Whether or not they stay on their own or build to multiple practitioners is up them and what they want to get from being self-employed. Building a thriving practice is a continual process of trying different things, searching for new knowledge and continually making changes as you progress towards greater success.

Keys to Building a Thriving Practice

Pay attention to your financials, in the beginning every month. This enables you to make adjustments as needed.

Maintain good bookkeeping habits. This helps your accountant at the end of each year to complete your taxes.

Set Goals, create a business plan with strategies to achieve them. Re-evaluate.

Be clear on who your market is and isn’t.

Save money by doing a waste audit. Sometimes it is time to pull the plug on a project that is draining resources

What are your political, environmental, social and technological constraints?

Define your strengths and weakness. Play to your strengths.

Understand key threats and opportunities.

Build a story around your business which is the core of your business brand. Communicate that in as many ways as you can, but stay consistent.

Ace customer/client service – this is how you gain long-term clients as well as referrals.

Use social media as one portion of your 7 touch points: Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube, Twitter are just five ways to contribute to the conversation and communicate with your clients.

Have a website and blog at a minimum. Referred clients will search for you and evaluate your level of professionalism and whether or not you can provide the appropriate solution for them. This is part of brand a reputation building.

Use images that are appropriate to your market and that create emotion and connection. Ensure these are consistent with your brand’s story.

As an entrepreneur I always set goals, create a plan, evaluate progress and then redefine the goal or the plan. During these sessions we shared our goal and suggested different strategies to meet them, mine is develop a team of 5 Kinesiologists at the Steve Nash Fitness World in North Vancouver. This weekend’s workshop helped me to identify some areas where I can focus to take Lifemoves® to the next level. I do recommend that this workshop to anyone who is trying to start/build a wellness practice; click here to find out when the next one will be held.

Did you attend this workshop at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club? Can you think of any other ways to create a thriving health, wellness and rehabilitation practice?

This past week I hit a very frustrating brick wall and plateau and I was all out of ideas of how grow my business. I know this brick wall I am facing is a big opportunity to refresh my business model, but how to do it remains unknown. Lifemoves® is very successful thus far and I am confident that we have an outstanding concept, however just like athletic training, we have hit a bit of a plateau. When I hit plateaus in my career and training I know it is time for a change.

It is time to break the plateau to achieve even more outstanding results. This means breaking out of the mold and trying something extraordinary that challenges myself, my team and the industry. When I am fresh out of ideas I read or go to continuing education sessions. Can-Fit Pro this weekend in the spectacular Vancouver Convention Center was the perfect opportunity to meet up with fitness industry experts and regain some perspective so I could figure out how to break our current plateau.

Our minds are much like spider webs as each piece of new knowledge weaves itself into our current knowledge as we make connections and becomes a new ring on the web. This weekend I felt like an explorer, searching for some answers. Since this weekend was a last minute registration my session choices were more intuitive than deliberate. Each session had its own nugget or two which I could take away and apply. I still haven’t found the way to break this plateau, however I know that I am close.

I need to take some time to digest all the information I received, review my notes and attend “Building a Thriving Wellness Practice” on November 27th. All the stimulus of conferences with 1.5 hour sessions on different topics and then networking with colleagues takes a lot of energy. I will be taking time to recharge by going to the infrared sauna and yoga during the next week. After that it will be time sit down in a quiet space and re-write my business plan.

I know change is needed, I know change is happening. What does change look like? I will know when I am there. To achieve great change and break plateaus we need to disrupt our regular patterns. What do you to create disruptions?